It is not uncommon to load and unload burn-in boards by hand, although grippers designed for printed circuit board loading are also frequently used for loading burn-in boards. The grippers grip the sides of a DIP and push the DIP into a socket. Since the ceramic unit DIP's are constructed having upper and lower substrates, which can be skewed relative to each other, gripping the DIP's by the sides as done by the grippers can cause damage to the packages. In addition, failure to accurately locate the packages with respect to the sockets causes frequent bending of the DIP pins which necessitates a pin straighting process in association with the burn-in board loading and unloading. A "sword" is frequently used for unloading the DIP's, the sword being simply a long straight piece of metal. The sword is slid through the extraction slots underneath a row of DIP's. Once inserted down the extraction slot of the row of DIP's, the sword is lifted at the user end, pushing the DIP's out of the sockets. Pushing the DIP's out of their sockets at an angle causes frequent pin damage.